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5.0 - THE AFTERNOON: Traveling between Iraq, Anatolia, the Levant, Egypt and Mecca - (600/1203 - 620/1223)

“These are the houses, and the heart is wandering, in them, according to the rule of destinies.
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The orbs are revolving with him in their spaces, and the universe in the cycles and spheres.
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Whenever he settles in one house, the glimmers of lights aspire to him.
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To provide them by emanation, as the night is streaming, before the morning campers wake up to move.
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To leave this earth, to the right side, towards the west of mysteries.
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Then the higher Idris (/the spirit) shall come with his horn, tracing this enormous camp.
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And hiding the light away from the sight of the observer, just as the Sun overwhelms the outcome of the moon.
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The chilling ether now have governed, where coldness and heating are ever in phases.”
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Ibn al-Arabi (Diwan, p. 43) ... See the comments on this poem in section [ref:commentsch15] at the end of this chapter..

After he filled the heart with the lights revealed in Mecca, the Greatest Shaykh wanted to knock on the doors of the northern cities, to perform more cruising in these countries to eventually select a place to settle down. At the end of the year 600/1203 he began the northern trip to Iraq, passing through Baghdad, then Mosul, where he met Shaykh Ali Ibn Jamii who bestowed on him the rag of Khader.

In the year 603/1206, we find Ibn al-Arabi in Egypt again, but this time his stay was not so pleasant as he was met by sever objection from some jurists, thus he returned to Mecca in the year 604/1207, to start a new journey towards the north. In 607/1210, he was in Konya, and he visited many cities in Turkey and Armenia, and Haran, before returning to Baghdad for the third time in 608/1211. Then he returned, also for the third time, to Mecca, in the year 611/1214, from where he left again in 612/1215, seeking Sivas to meet king Kikaws, who honored him and used to consult him in his affairs, though the Shaykh didn’t stay long with him.

In the year 611/1215, he performed his fourth trip to the north, where he spent about six years in Anatolia, after the above previous brief sojourns, but during this time he went several times to Aleppo, and he lived there for a short period, before moving permanently to Damascus, which happened after the death of king Izzuddin Kaykaus in 618/1220. In Aleppo and in Damascus, he was also celebrated by the Ayyubid kings who appreciated his haughty statues and always accepted his intercession.

This era signifies an important stage of Ibn al-Arabi’s life, filled with physical and spiritual activity. Additionally, during these multiple trips, he me many scholars and collected around him many devotees, and he wrote about fifty of his important books and treatises.

5.1- His First Trip to the North (601/1205-604/1208)

5.2- His Second Trip to the North (606/1209-608/1211)

5.3- His Third Trip to the North (608/1211-611/1214)

5.4- His Fourth Trip to the North (611/1214-620/1223)

5.5- Comments on the Opening Poem